Attorney: No Denial Of Crime

From the witness stand, Myong Il Brown stared at her brother, who admits he killed her 13-year-old daughter by plunging the teeth of a crowbar into the girl's head.

Brown picked up a paper towel and scrunched it in her hand as her eyes filled with tears. Her brother, Myong Sun Ji, did not meet her gaze but listened intently as a court interpreter translated his sister's testimony against him.

Ji, 35, is charged with first-degree murder in the August 1998 death of Eunice Brown at her Margate home. He is also charged with attempted first-degree murder of Myong Il Brown and aggravated child abuse. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

During an argument with his sister about whether he should return to his native Korea, Ji picked up a crowbar, said Warner Olds, his court-appointed attorney.

Ji's sister ignored him but Eunice Brown came into the garage where they were arguing and Ji hit her in the head with the end of the metal bar. The child was declared dead hours later when efforts to save her life failed.

Olds told jurors in opening statements Wednesday that Ji admits that he caused Eunice Brown's death. But Olds will argue that he did not commit first-degree murder.

"It's not an accident," Olds told the jury. "There is a crime here, but what it is is for you to sort out. I'm just telling you it's not first-degree murder."

Prosecutor Tim Donnelly told the jury that it was a premeditated crime and there is evidence that Ji had murderous intentions against Eunice Brown. He said in court that he will also counter Olds' argument by telling the jury the girl was killed in the course of a beating, aggravated child abuse, which could make it a felony murder -- also punishable by death.

Myong Il Brown and Eunice Brown's father, Allen Brown, testified Wednesday that they were in the process of trying to get Ji to return to Korea when the killing occurred. Hard economic times in South Korea persuaded Ji that he should move here to live with his sister and her family and work in his sister's home-based sewing business.

The couple said Ji did not adapt to life here in the five months after his move. He had to be hospitalized on two occasions for taking overdoses of an over-the-counter painkiller and seemed to be unhappy, they said.

Some weeks before the killing, they found a drawing in his room that depicted Eunice Brown with a knife in her throat. The picture bore a caption in Korean with the girl's name and it said that she would die slowly and would be unable to scream.

Myong Il Brown confronted her brother with the picture, she said, and asked him why he had drawn such a picture of her daughter.

"He told me, `That's not Eunice, it's you,'" she testified.

Earlier Eunice Brown's brother, David Brown, 13, testified that he had glimpsed the picture too and that it changed his feelings about his uncle.

The Brown family all testified that they welcomed Ji, tried to include him in family activities and gave him a job sewing piecework for his sister's business. Myong Il Brown said she paid all Ji's living expenses and gave him about $200 every two weeks.

But Olds said the family treated Ji very poorly. They isolated him and put him in "involuntary servitude," Olds told the jury.

The family would not let Ji use the toilet, or eat at the table with the rest of the family, Olds said.

"Eunice would give her uncle the finger and say bad things to him," Olds said. "In their culture, that's very disrespectful."

And Olds said there were marital problems between the Browns before Ji came to live with them. Myong Il Brown had a court restraining order against her husband shortly before the killing.

Allen Brown said Wednesday that the couple's problems were related to tensions caused by Ji's presence in the home and then by the death of their daughter.

Testimony in the trial will resume on Monday.

Paula McMahon can be reached at pmcmahon@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4533.